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Over the course of the next week, several events will take place to raise awareness of blindness and how to combat the condition.
Open Your Eyes to the Problem
AMD Awareness Week begins today and concludes on Sunday September 25th, aiming to alert the public to Age-Related Macular Degeneration and identify people who could be at risk of it. AMD is the leading cause of sight loss in people over 50 in Ireland and each year over 7,000 new cases are identified, often at a point at which damage has already been caused.
Diagnosing the condition can allow an eye-care professional to treat the condition and prevent further damage. Free AMD testing will be available to the public on Tuesday, 20th September at the County Library Tallaght, Library Square, Tallaght, Dublin 24 from 10am – 1pm and at the Lexicon Library, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin from 2pm – 6pm.
Catch Sight of the Solution
HBD Red Alert: Seeing/Not Seeing – Rare Forms of Blindness is a public conversation at the Science Gallery, Pearse Street that will discuss rare forms of sight loss. It will be presented by the Health Research Board as part of the HBD Red Alert series.
The event will be hosted by Jessica Kelly of Newstalk, with a panel of experts present that will include Avril Daly (CEO of Retina International), Jane Farrar (Professor of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin) and John Delany (Senior Counselling Manager at Fighting Blindness).
Rare, age-related, genetic and age-related conditions that lead to some form of blindness affect more than 224,000 people in Ireland. Stories will be told by people whose lives have been affected by a loss of sight, in which they will discuss the emotions they have experienced with the condition. Several topics will be covered including their diagnosis, society’s perception of blindness and how they learned to come to terms with their condition.
There is hope for the future, as the event will showcase the innovative research that is being carried out to develop new treatments and therapies for various forms of blindness, as well as highlighting the support that is available through charities such as Fighting Blindness.
HBD Red Alert: Seeing/Not Seeing – Rare Forms of Blindness will run from from 6pm – 7.15pm on Tuesday September 20th. Admission is free and tickets can be booked here.
By Kevin Carney
